Working with influencers and getting brand ambassadors on board can be great for business, but so few companies truly understand the benefits of building a brand advocate army. These are your loyal customers who keep returning to your business and singing its praises to friends, family, colleagues and social followers.

Building trust among your customers and getting them to believe passionately in what you do is about more than just providing good customer service (although that is part of it). Your brand needs to be engaging and trustworthy, and you need to project the right image to your customers. This can be difficult with so much competition for the same customer base, but you can stand out and build your brand. Here’s how:

Know your brand inside out

If you don’t know your brand inside out or are sending mixed messages, how can you expect customers to know what you’re about?

Spend time on your brand and develop it from the ground up. Think about values, structure, market positioning, image, and how you want your customers to see you.

You can use brand archetypes to help build your brand, i.e. the theory of defining exactly who your customers are. Fitting into one of these profiles will help you position your company and reach the right people.

Simple, effective video content

It’s so important that you make an impact quickly, and one of the best ways to do this is via video. Not only is it easier to get across a message and show who you are, but internet users crave video content. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, and

If you’re not already using video content to draw customers in at every stage, you really should give it some thought. You might find some handy hints in our video marketing whitepaper.

Get social

Go where your customers are and spend time getting to know them. Social media is useless if you’re not willing to engage. The best brands on social media are those who interact with their followers and use the platforms to provide customer service. Take a look at these brands that are winning on the social media front.

One thing to remember with social media, Twitter especially, is to use the search function. At the very least you should be searching for brand mentions when your username hasn’t been included. This is the best way to find disgruntled customers and turn them into happy ones.

Make every customer feel special

You might invite loyal customers along to events (on and offline), offer discounts on new purchases, or go that extra mile when it comes to your customer service efforts. What you do will depend on your brand but the trick is to make the customer feel like you are on their side – because you are!

Your army of brand advocates will soon grow, rewarding you by spreading the word, coming back to make new purchases and sharing what you do across the internet.

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